End of the Weekend

It's Sunday, and the day is nearly over. My cough was so bad that we skipped church. We got the kids to Sunday school, though.

Later in the day, we went to the community association building (which we've joined in order to use the pool in the summer) for an Easter egg hunt. The kids had a great time. I ran into some ladies that I know from Cub Scouts, and one of them spends a lot of time at the kids' school's greenhouse. She told me to stop by sometime while she's there, and she'll show me around. I am looking forward to that.

I'm hoping my cold will be better by next week. I can talk better now, but my cold keeps me up.

New Chickens

We went to the chicken farm this morning and got a pullet and a cockrel. The brown pullet in the front of the picture is a breed called Red Star. She'll lay brown eggs.

The gray and black cockrel in the back is a Barred Rock chicken. He'll replace our current rooster named Red Walter when he's a bit bigger. Red Walter has a date with my crock pot.

Mr. K tried to incubate a couple dozen eggs. When nothing happend, he started cracking them open. They hadn't been fertilized. Red Walter's daddy, Yellow Walter mated many, many times a day. Red Walter almost never seems to bother. He's not half the man his dad was. He's a very nice, friendly rooster, and he's very nice to his hens, but he's just not doing the job, and we had hoped to raise our own chickens again by incubating the eggs. No such luck. Hopefully this new chicken will do what he needs to do. We haven't named him yet, but he'll be some kind of a Walter, after my grandfather.

My Littlest Angel

Kate has fallen asleep on the recliner. We had to make the hard decision about waking her up for the Cub Scout Pack meeting. She said she wanted to go, but if awaken, she might be a big brat. I decided to skip the pack meeting because of my very bad cough. I could have kept her home with me, but if she woke up and found she didn't get to go, she'd have made me miserable for the rest of the evening.

Mr. K decided to wake her up and ask her if she still wanted to go. She did, and so far she hasn't been fussy. Mr. K and the kids just left for the pack meeting. When I'm done here, I need to go clean my kitchen. Then I'll have a little time to myself. I feel so bad, though, about Mr. K being stuck out in public with all three kids. That's something I try very hard to avoid. They are difficult to manage. I know what my mom meant when she said about my brother and me, "I wouldn't take you to a pick sticking!"

I think we may go to the farm from which we get our chickens and rabbits tomorrow. We need to get a new rooster. None of the eggs Mr. K put in the incubator had been fertilized it turned out. Red Walter needs to go, and we need a more manly rooster.

Bouquet of Asparagus

The picture is of a bunch of asparagus I got for $1.34 at a grocery salvage store. It came from Peru originally. This store had a lot of other produce at great prices (and some not priced so well). I got some red bell peppers for 88 cents apiece. I got limes at 5 for $1.00.

I think I need to check into getting some of my produce there each week. I avoid recipes calling for red bell peppers normally because they are $3.99 per pound at the store at which I do my weekly shopping. Sometimes I substiture green bell peppers since they are usually half the cost. I might be able to add more vegetables to our diet if I can get them cheaply to hold us until I have a producing garden this summer.

I am getting very interested in rissoles. I had never heard of them until people discussed them at the Cafe Crowd. I made turkey meatloaf tonight, but the only vegetable in it was dried onion. I thought it was pretty good since it wasn't very greasy. Mr. K said he didn't like it because it was so dry, and that it would have been improved had I wrapped it in bacon (which I sometimes do with meatloaf). I am curious about how close rissoles are to meatloaf. I might be interested in trying a baked kind. I'd be willing to brown it in oil first. I don't care to try a deep-fried type or a bbqed type. Brilly or Sars, if you read this, do you have any recommendations for rissole recipes that I might like to try or just general directions if it is like meatloaf where one just throws some stuff together and bakes it? I'd be willing to add carrots and onions. Once summer comes, and I have zucchinis, I'd be willing to add them, too. I've never made vegetable-laden meatloaf nor individual meatloaves. I see that sometimes rissoles are coated in breading. I've never coated meatloaf in breading, but I mix cracker crumbs into the meat.

My cold is getting bad again. I think I've caught a second one. My caugh is horrid, and I can barely talk today. I've been trying to avoid answering the phone since the person on the other end can barely make out what I am saying.

I thought I killed most of my little seedlings by leaving them outside accidentally two nights ago, but they seem to have perked up again. We still get below freezing some nights, and I think we came awfully close to freezing that night. I got the seeds to sprout in the house, but I just can't get the plants to grow. To get enough sun, I have to put them out on my front porch on sunny days. Quite often the high is only in the 40s or 50s. My house is about 63 °F. The seedlings are mostly tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers. They would like the 60s overnight and 80s during the day to actually thrive. I think I started them a bit too early since I'm not offering them the temperatures they would like. Meanwhile, I'm thinking of starting some zucchinis and other squash so I can get an early start as soon as it is safe to put plants out that can't freeze, which should be in two or three weeks.

Long Weekend

This weekend feels like its going to last forever. Mr. K left this morning (Saturday) for his annual business trip. We took him to the airport at about 10 a.m.

The girls (especially J) have been shrill and obnoxious today. J has been very obnoxious lately because she isn't getting enough sleep. Two Thursdays ago, I took her to the orthodontist for the final appointment in getting a "habit appliance." She can no longer fit her thumb comfortably into her mouth. This means she has a lot of trouble falling asleep, and if she wakes up in the night, she can't fall back to sleep because she can't suck her thumb. Originally she was waking me up in the night to make good and sure I knew she couldn't sleep. Now I've sort of got her trained to just get up and read/look at a book. I think she's reached the third chapter of the first Trixie Belden book.

Anyway, since J isn't sleeping well, she's very difficult to deal with.

N called me from school Wednesday. I had to come and get him. He had the fever-thing we've been getting. He missed school Thursday and Friday. I'm planning to send him tomorrow.

Because of Mr. K's business trip, we celebrated N's ninth birthday last night. His real birthday is tomorrow. I'll take the kids out to dinner. I have a lot of eggs. If I can get K to take a nap, perhaps I'll try to throw together a chiffon cake. I bought a store bakery cake for us on Friday, but it's long gone.

I miss Mr. K terribly. I think he's in his hotel room (always a very nice hotel--too bad he has to pay for it himself, but the corporate office always holds these things in expensive hotels). He's got a crossword puzzle book he had me pick up at Target a couple nights ago and some granola bars. He called us this evening and says he thinks he'll just stay in and eat granola bars this evening.

I'm guessing he'll go out with the people he knows tomorrow. Business hasn't been very good for a lot of the offices recently, so I'm sure a lot of the discussions will be about the economy and its impact upon his line of work. It won't be much fun.

I'm sort of tired and the girls won't go to bed. K napped earlier and J insists she can't sleep if she can't suck her thumb. I'm going to shut down the computer, turn off the TV in the livingroom, and get ready for bed. Hopefully the girls will get to bed soon. I'll tuck them in, but I'm guessing they won't stay put.

Somebody's Watching You!

Not really; I just wanted to post with this picture of K's eye. I sort of screwed up and missed most of her face.

I've got a bad cold. In a few minutes, I'll get off the computer and take some night time cold medicine. It has cough-stuff in it. My cough is very annoying.

Spring is coming even though we have had three days of very cold rain. I can hear the spring peepers when I go outside in the dark.

I'm still struggling to get my tax stuff together for the accountant. I'm too sleepy and sick to properly proof-read the materials I've got together. Hopefully I'll be better tomorrow night so I can take it in to the accountant on Tuesday.

I'm hoping the weather will warm up soon. I've got a lot of little seedlings that I'd like to put on the front porch so they can get some sun. I might have started them too soon; we'll wait and see how many survive. I've got some flat-leaf parsley, eggplant, tomatoes, and peppers that are just tiny sprouts, but they'd do so much better if they could have some sun.

A problem with daughters

In my experience, daughters like to pick flowers more than sons. My girls were out in the yard today, and each one, without asking me, picked a bouquet of daffodils. J says her is for her teacher, assuming she's well enough to go to school tomorrow. This is not the first time my girls have raided my daffodils

Fortunatley, I grow lots of daffodils, so there are still many to enjoy outdoors.

Sick kid again

J got sent home from school Monday afternoon with a fever. She's still got a slight one today (under 100 °F) and she's seeming a lot more alert, so I'm hoping she'll be able to go to school tomorrow. at her highest, she was close to 103 °F. She has a sore throat and a slight cough, too.

So far I haven't bothered taking her to the doctor's office. I get so tired of hearing it's just a virus and that all we can do is have her consume fluids and Tylenol.

I had a dental appointment today, but I had to cancel it because of being home with J. I was supposed to go to the office to pick up payroll taxes and take them to the bank and to mail the monthly report to the corporate office. The office manager will have to do that herself now since I'm stuck home. It was also gym day, but I'm skipping that, too.

I'm feeling very tired. I'm adjusting poorly to the change in the clocks for daylight savings time. I wish we'd just stay in daylight savings time all year.

Fun with sound

I found this link:

http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2009/03/can-you-hear-this-hearing-test/

It has an unscientific test you can run on yourself to see how deaf age is making you.

I can almost hear 15 kHz. I would say 14 is really my limit. My son can hear through 19 kHz, I think.

I cranked the volume up all the way on 15 kHz while N was in the bathroom with the door closed. He came out to see what the noise was. I wasn't bothered in the least by it. I couldn't really hear it. I can see how places can run off teenagers with noise that older people can't hear.

Still snowed in

The sun came out today, which gave my yard a lot more color. The high stayed below freezing today, and our overnight low set a record. It might again tonight. Once again, school for tomorrow is canceled.

J is upset by being home for one more day. She's very bored. I've been reading to her from Laura Ingalls Wilder's books. We're on On the Shores of Silver Lake now. We've also played a lot of Clue when we can distract K. I think we played four games of it today.

Thursday, the weather will warm up significantly. By Saturday, the high will be 71 °F. The snow will melt off for the most part. I have some pea sprouts coming up in peat pellets. They should be planted in the ground, but it's far to cold now, and the ground is covered by snow. I expect to get them in the ground Thursday or Friday, depending on how fast the snow melts.

Snow

Here is a shot of the road, looking down it from in front of my house. We found about nine inches of snow when we got up this morning. School was canceled the evening before. It is canceled for tomorrow, too. My street is cleared completely now. The plows have been by several times. My street gets a lot of traffic so it is plowed pretty early on.

Saturday was Winterfest at the kids' school. We went, let the kids play games and ride the moon ride stuff, and then we ate dinner there.

Sunday we went to church, and then I called Mr. K's office manager to find out where the paperwork was that she wanted to be sure I took into the post office today and made sure it got today's date in its cancellation. I picked it up yesterday, had Mr. K sign it and include a check, and I dropped it off in the slot in the lobby yesterday (Sunday) to be sure it would be processed today. Mr. K didn't go to work today, nor did any of his employees.

The power seems to have gone out for a little while in the night, but I slept through it (thank goodness!). Mr. K's office manager had no power today until evening. This storm took out a lot of people's power.

A few tree limbs fell around our yard, but I don't think they hit much of importance. My clothes line had too much weight on it because of the accumulated snow, and it fell over.